| My finger never hesitatedIt punched the
last number, and somewhere in Providence, a phone
began to ringzit?"
For a moment I was sure I'd blown the number after
allThe voice was female, but sounded older than
my daughterBut I resisted
my initial impulse to say "Wrong number" and hang
upShe sounded tired, Pam had said, but if this
was Ilse, she sounded more than tired; she sounded
weary unto death
"Ilse?"
No answer for a long timeI began to think the
disembodied someone in Providence had hung upI
realized I was sweating, and heavily enough so I
could smell myself, like a monkey on a dolce and gabbana bucket handbag branch
Then the same little refrain:
"Hel-lo?zit?"
"Ilse!"
889
NothingI sensed her getting ready to hang up
Outside the wind was roaring and the surf was
pounding
"Miss Cookie!" I shouted"Miss Cookie, don't you
dare hang up this phone!"
That got throughdee?" There was a world
of wonder in that broken word
"If you're really DaddyI could
see her in her own kitchen, barefoot (as she had
been that day in Little Pink, looking at the
picture of the doll and the floating tennis balls),
head down, hair hanging around her face
Distracted, maybe almost to the point of madness
And for the first time I began louis vuitton online to hate Perse as
well as fear herI want you to listen to
me-"
"Tell me my screen name There was a certain
shocked cunning in the voice now"If you're
really my Daddy, tell me my screen name
And if I didn't, I realized, she'd hang up
Because something had been at herSomething had
890
been fooling her, pawing her over, drawing its
webs around her
For a moment I couldn't remember that, either
You can do this, Kamen said, but Kamen was deadmy Daddy," said the distracted girl
on the other end of the line, and again she was on
the verge of hanging up
Think sideways, Kamen advised calmly
Even then, knock off chanel I thought, without knowing why I was
thinking itEven then, even later, even now, even
so -
"You're not my Daddy, you're her," Ilse saidThat
drugged and dragging voice, so unlike herGoodb-"
"If so!" I shouted, not caring if I woke Wireman
or notNot even thinking about Wireman"You're
If-So-Girl!"
A long pause from the other endThen: "What's the
rest of it?"
I had another moment of horrible blankness, and
then I thought: Alicia Keyes, keys on a piano -
"88," I said"You're If-So-Girl88
891
There was a long, long pause
Then she began to cry
vii
"Daddy, she said you were deadThat was the prada bags sales one
thing I believedNot just because I dreamed it
but because Mom called and said Tom diedI
dreamed you were sad and walked into the GulfI
dreamed the undertow took you and you drowned
"I didn't drown, IlseI'm okay, I promise you
The story came out in fragments and bursts,
interrupted by tears and digressionsIt was clear
to me that hearing my voice had steadied her but
not cured herShe was wandering, strangely
unfixed in time; she referred to the show at the
Scoto as if it had occurred at least a week ago,
and interrupted herself once to tell me that a
friend of hers had been arrested for tiffany and co earrings "crop |